Drifter
by SnowFallsSlow
Summary: “Ya caught me,” she said with that crooked smile, raising her hands in mock surrender. “Now whatcha gonna do?”
1. Meeting Melody

_Here is, as promised long ago, in a land where updates were not so scarce as they are today, my Cyborg-centric fiction. It's four chapters and an epilogue long, nothing too fancy. Enjoy!_

* * *

"Can I sit here?" I looked up, startled out of my thoughts about life. Hopeful brown eyes reiterated the question as a tall redheaded girl looked back at me, a crooked smile on her freckled face.

"Oh. Sure." I swept my arm grandly at the other side of the booth I had all to myself and she slid into it gratefully. The little diner was crowded, not an unusual thing for a Jump City Friday at noontime.

"Thanks," she said, tucking a very short strand of her red locks behind her ear and setting her plate onto the table between us. She bowed her head, eyes closed, and clasped her hands together, about to pray, but opened one eye and raised her head slightly. "Won't bother you if I say grace, will it?" I shook my head, leaning back in my seat, still a bit surprised at getting interrupted in the first place.

"Not at all, little lady." She grinned at me, then closed her eye again. The whole point behind the holo-ring was to avoid attention; I'd worked a long time trying to get it exactly right so that Beast Boy and I would be able to go out into the city without getting the attention being a superhero got you. Though, the more I thought about it, this girl had been the only one to give me a second glance all day, and she was hardly fawning or screaming like a fan girl.

Holo-ring final test: success.

She raised her head, eyes on her food, and grabbed her fork, stabbing ravenously at her French fries. "So," she asked around a forkful of fries, "what's your name?"

"Vic," I said smoothly, having practiced the name in front of a mirror, so as not to stick out when someone asked me the simple question. I reached for my water, spinning the cup between my hands and wishing, not for the first time, that I could feel the cool glass or the wet condensation.

"Vic," she repeated under her breath. "Short for Victor?" I nodded, smiling a little bit. "Very cool. I'm Melody, Melody Jane." She continued spearing fries through with her fork.

"You a local?" I asked, eyeing her curiously. "No one here eats fries like that." I nodded towards her fork. She set it on the outside of her plate, reaching for the salt and the ketchup.

"Ya caught me," she said with that crooked smile, raising her hands in mock surrender. "I'm just blowing through." She picked up a burger, biting into it noisily. "Man," she said after swallowing. "I love the burgers here! The last town I was in had awful burgers." She shook her head, looking sad. "Half beef, half tofu, all nasty." She wrinkled her nose at the memory.

"You don't like tofu, either, I take it?" I asked, suppressing a laugh. Poor vegetarians, all alone in a world where meat was king. She didn't respond verbally, instead wrinkling her nose and taking a very large bite of the greasy burger she had ordered. I grinned, liking this girl more by the second.

"I love little diners like this; they're, like, the pulse of the city." She looked over her shoulder, nodding. "You've got a great city, here, Vic. Good burgers and happy customers. And the diner's just so quaint." I looked around; wondering if anywhere in industrial, smoggy Jump City could be called 'quaint.' Actually, the more I looked, the more I could see the description fitting; it was no wonder Beast Boy came here for pie all the time. A classic black and white checkerboard floor stretched from wall to wall, and faded, yellowed newspaper articles and reviews were framed and hanging across the green paint. There were even a couple of small pictures tacked up on the wall, people who'd come back time and again for good food and struck up a friendship with the waitresses.

"Yep," I agreed, nodding. "S'pose the Teen Titans help with that." She whipped back around, looking momentarily alarmed, then confused. She cocked her head to the side.

"The who?" she asked. I raised an eyebrow.

"The _Teen Titans_. They're a superhero team. They live in that building in the bay. You know, the ridiculously large "T" shaped one?" She wrinkled her nose.

"You guys have superheroes here?" She stabbed her fork at her fries again, missing once before she actually speared some. "Jeeze. Just when I thought this was a nice place."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, affronted. She shook her head.

"Not to be hating on your local heroes or anything, man, but the fact that you need 'em is something of a shame." She sighed, putting her fork down and taking a swig of her soda. "Besides, in hero towns, everyone talks about their given hero like they're perfect. No freakin' way." She shook her head, then looked up, making intense eye contact, daring me to argue with her. "I'd betcha they're just as messed up as you and me." Unable to help myself, I laughed, thinking of all the issues we had on the team.

"You have no idea how right you are." She raised an eyebrow, giving me an odd look. Then she shrugged, deciding not to pursue the line of questioning. "That's part of why I'm here by myself," I offered, realizing my mistake. "My best friend and I got into a little fight, so I decided to clear out. Give him some time to cool off, come around, you know?" I spun the cup back and forth between my hands, thinking about the little changeling. He and I really had gotten into it, over something that seemed pointless to me. But, something I had said had really set him off, and he went to go fume in his room. "I asked around, but no one else wanted to hang with me today." Raven wanted to read, and Star and Rob had something planned and, for once, the lack of criminal activity coincided. She shrugged, offering a half-smile.

"Leastways, you've got friends. I… find it difficult to stay in one place long." She looked almost sad at this statement, but shook it off. "Take this place, for example." She raised her arms to indicate Jump City. "Soon as I finish my job here," she said as she leaned back, clasping her hands behind her head. "I'll be long gone."

* * *

_Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans._

_Thanks for reading; unless this lovely site throws a fit again, I should have the next chapter up tomorrow._

_...SnowFallsSlow...  
_


	2. A Sweet Song

_Here's the second chapter of the story; I'd been planning to update sooner, but life, the pesky little thing, got in my way. I had to write some essays and stuff for school. No where near as much fun as this._

* * *

Melody Jane, it seems to me, is a liar. She says she has no friends; I find that very difficult to believe. I've known her for approximately two hours and thirteen minutes, and, I have to say, she rivals Starfire in her level of enthusiasm for life. To top it off, she was as willing to listen as she was to talk.

"So, how are your parents?" she asked off-handedly, fiddling with a thin black ring, studded with tiny sliver crosses, that was on her left hand –a promise ring, she'd told me, but not only in the conventional way. Along with promising abstinence –"Like I could handle a kid anyway."- the ring represented a promise she'd made to herself. She hadn't said what it was, yet, though, and I was getting curious. The question, though, had shot a hole right through that.

I winced, and she looked over, apologetic. "That bad?" she asked. "You don't have to answer, if you don't want to."

"No, it's fine. Dad and I sort of… decided to go our separate ways." I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck as I looked at the imperfections in the table. I was sort of surprised the waitresses hadn't kicked us out yet, but, then again, the lunch rush was long over. "As for mom… well… she's… in a better place now, as they say." I looked up at Melody Jane, who was watching me with surprising interest.

"Well, you still call him "Dad," which is a good sign for your relationship. Working on patching things up, I take it?" I shrugged. "As for me," she continued, still fiddling with her ring, "my mother and father got divorced when I was younger. All I knew of my dad was his voice, until a little under three years ago, when I turned eighteen and my mother kicked me out. Turns out he wasn't worth knowing anyway." She shrugged a little, trying to pretend the event that had lead to that decision wasn't as big of a deal as I knew it must have been. "As for _mother_," she said, eyes narrowing a little, "well… we don't get along so well. She's one of those nutters who demands perfection or declares damnation. No happy middle ground for her. Obviously, I'm just not good enough for her." I let out a whistle.

"That sucks." She smiled crookedly.

"Not really. I've sort of been a disappointment to her my whole life." Her smile got wider, and she put the ring on her finger. "Mother was in the church choir, you see. Wanted me to take it up, too, which is where I got the name." She raised her eyes, making amused contact with me. "My little Melody," she said, raising the pitch of her voice to mock her mother. "She'll have a voice like an angel." She laughed, shaking her head. "My voice is awful," she chuckled. "I'll tell you, when I sing, it ain't no sweet song."

I laughed. "You've gotta tell me, what's the other promise that the ring's for?" She looked at her hand for a second, taking off the ring and spinning it between her fingers. She sighed, slipping it back on.

"If I tell you," she said, reaching into her pocket, "you've gotta take a picture with me." She held out a little digital camera, a grin much like Starfire's lighting up her face. She turned the camera on, looking down at the display screen, setting it up so she could scroll through the pictures. She handed the little camera across the table to me. "Scroll through 'em, you'll see the last few towns I been to."

Being careful not to crush the little red camera –just because my hands _looked_ human didn't mean they were- I started to scroll through the pictures. The same pair of brown eyes stared back at me from every frame, though her companions and location were different every time. The first one was of her in front of a pizza joint, her arm slung around a tall young lady with black hair, and eyes that matched her own, only a few shades darker. The girl, who was wearing a skeleton jacket, was waving at the camera, grinning back, and the shot was wide enough that Melody must have asked someone else to take it. The two had hair almost reaching their elbows, so she must have gotten it cut after this had been taken.

The second was much like the first, Melody standing in between two Asian-looking girls, the three of them raising the bar. The tallest wore a headband in her dark hair, and the shortest had her arms crossed over her chest, mildly irritated as Melody used her as an armrest, although Melody herself was in the same position. The plaid-wearing bottom "bar" was clutching a Canon camera, likely waiting to have the same picture taken again. The three were posing in front of a small pond, and a duck had just taken off as the picture was being snapped.

In the third, a young man wearing Aviator sunglasses stood next to her, grinning like a monkey. The sky stretched out behind them, bright and clear and cloudless. She was putting bunny ears behind his head, smiling crookedly. Her hair was shorter in this picture than it was now, like this was when she'd gotten it cut and it had grown out for a month or two. He was leaning towards her, faking like he was going to push her into the large cactus that stood proudly behind them.

Another was of the red-haired drifter and a girl with long, messy brown hair who had a pencil tucked behind her ear. She was standing a little too stiffly as Melody jovially hugged her, and her eyes were wide with surprise. One of her hands was in the process of coming up to block her face from the picture, but whoever had snapped it was just too quick.

"So," Melody started, breaking me out of my thoughts on who these people were, what stories they had to tell, "will you take a picture with me if I tell you?" I smiled back at her.

"And make it into the camera of fame?" I asked, waving it around a little before handing it back to her. "Of course! Walk and talk, I know just where we should take it." She nodded, and, since we had already both paid, we stood up and left the little diner. She waved to the waitresses before we left, then turned to me.

"The promise," she began as we walked, "is one that I made to myself." She pulled off the ring, looking at it quietly. "My mother, she never helped anyone but herself. Everything she did was about her and her image, and what everyone would think of her." She slid the ring back on. "She bought me this ring and make me promise to wait until marriage, not because she cared about me, or about my future husband, but because of what would happen to her reputation if word got out her little Melody had hit a sour note and got pregnant." She sighed, spinning the ring on her finger. "So, I made that promise. But, I made another one, too. I promised myself that I'd never be like her, that I'd try to make other people's lives better, that I'd make as many people smile as I could." She smiled a little at the declaration. "And I promised myself that my life would make one sweet song."

* * *

_I'm also working on dialogue a lot with this story; three new things all at once: Cyborg, first person, and (too much) dialogue._

_...SnowFallsSlow...  
_


	3. A Terrorizing Tune

_I've finally gotten to the computer again. We had to... get into our house through the window today, and I didn't get home until 5:00._

_Here's another chapter!  
_

* * *

It was dark. But, that didn't bother Melody. She'd never been afraid of the dark, not even of the things that might be hiding in it. Because Melody Jane, in order, it seemed, to add to her mother's dislike, wasn't just a choirgirl with a terrible voice. Melody Jane, despite everything her mother had always claimed otherwise, was different. Melody Jane… could teleport.

Danger had never really been _dangerous_ to her. Just a thought, a moment of the slightest concentration, and she could be gone. The silence around her was all consuming. Every shuffling step she made echoed across the room like an avalanche shaking the ground. But, she continued on, unflinching. She'd done this too many times to be worried.

Maybe that was the other part of why she went from town to town; it was so much easier to run from danger without friends to tie you to a place. Sure, she knew nice people; Vic, who she'd met just that afternoon, was a prime example. All he wanted to do was help, much like she did. Silent as death, she set her bag on the ground, and began to fill it, handful by handful. Kids were his passion, the kids with prosthetics, who had to grow up with other kids staring at them, with other kids calling them weird, and freak. A crooked little smile crossed Melody Jane's face. She knew just how to help.

An alarm sounded, the bank vault flashing red as the siren screamed shrilly, screamed for help, screamed in vain. She smiled, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear and picking up her bag, now full of cash. She'd done this far too many times to be vexed. As she slung it over her shoulder, Melody Jane vanished.

* * *

Robin had his back to us as he checked the computer screen. "Titans, we've got three different alarms triggered five minutes apart, each in a different area of the city." Beast Boy rubbed his eye tiredly, his normally spiked green hair falling in his face; he'd rinsed the gel out before he went to bed.

"Dude! Don't the bad guys ever sleep?" Raven put her hood up, shaking her head as he yawned loudly. Even she was tired, eyes only half open and speech a little slower than usual.

"They're not sleeping all this week," she said, rolling her eyes. "Or didn't you get the memo?" Starfire raised an eyebrow, pausing in the middle of brushing her long red hair back over her shoulders.

"There was a memo? Perhaps I, too, have missed it?" she asked, looking concerned. I shook my head, a little bit of laughter leaking out.

"Nah, she was being sarcastic, Star." I stretched, tired myself, but understanding the need to sacrifice sleep to protect the city. "So, Rob, where we gonna go, and when we gonna get there?" Robin turned around, his mask lenses wide with something akin to surprise.

"That's the thing, Cy," he said. "Four more alarms were triggered since we've been standing here." I stepped closer, not sure what he meant.

"What?"

"Almost every single bank in the city has been hit in the last fifteen minutes." Robin paused, then turned back to the screen, studying it for a moment. "Alright, Titans, we're going to the museum."

* * *

Melody paused for a moment, looking at the small mountain of wealth she'd accumulated in the last twenty minutes. The banks in Jump City were all short several grand, not that they'd notice until she was long gone. Next to hit up was the museum; she had someone who was interested in one of the displays, and the sum they were willing to pay would be more than enough to hit at least one of her goals, funding, if not the new wing at the shelter, than at least the fence.

She glanced around her little, pay-by-the-week apartment. She would replace the fridge first, and then the oven, and she'd try to find a cleaner microwave. And then… she picked up the little red camera, one of her few possessions. "And then," she said with a little smile, looking at her newest picture, "to the Victor go the spoils." She set the camera down, disappearing, with her mind set on the museum.

The latest picture had yet to fade from the screen; it was she and Victor, leaning on his car's hood, both doing the peace sign at the camera with their ring-bearing hands. The car had a high-tech look to it. He'd built it himself, he said, and based it off of the Teen Titan's car. Designed to save battery power, the little camera powered down, leaving the apartment dark once more.

* * *

"How long do we have to wait, Robin?" Beast Boy's hoarse whisper strained through the dark silence. The poor kid wasn't used to sitting quietly in the dark, something I could tell was grinding down Robin's nerves.

"Hush, man. If the dude comes any time soon, he'll hear you and just light outta here," I hissed back.

"Oh," came the embarrassed reply. "Sorry. I'll be quiet." Silence reigned for almost a full minute. Beast Boy inhaled to speak again, and something happened. A loud whoosh of air filled the room with sound, and, all of a sudden, a very unlucky teleporter was standing in the middle of our little circle.

"Titans, go!" Before the thief knew what was happening, several attacks were fired at him. Star flew into the air, her hands aglow as she tossed starbolts at him; Raven, too, took to the air, her eyes white as her power reached out and grabbed loose tiles, empty packing crates, and other projectiles. Robin let a fistful of his disks fly, and I let loose a powerful sonic blast. Beast Boy, for the moment, hung back, letting our attacks find purchase instead of jumping into their paths. A startled cry rang out from the thief, in a voice too high to be male. In the next second, the girl was gone, fifteen feet away with her eyes closed, now discernable as such because Raven had turned the lights back on. I had my cannon trained on her, but Beast Boy leapt more quickly into action.

An emerald tiger pounced on the startled girl, who was clearly not used to opposition. They both fell, and the shock of not being effortlessly tossed aside caused Beast Boy to shift back into his humanoid form; he was far too used to fighting people larger and stronger than himself; the two of them would have been evenly matched, I decided, sans their powers. "Sorry, but, get offa me!" The teleporting female gave Beast Boy a rough shove, sending him, though not flying into the back wall, at least falling backwards. She teleported to the other side of the museum, straightening up and dusting herself off. "Ow…" she muttered, examining a spot where Beast Boy had caught her with his claws. I gasped, my eyes going wide as I realized whom this girl was.

"No way."

* * *

_Two words: Yes way._

_...SnowFallsSlow...  
_


	4. On a Sour Note

_After this, one chapter left, and a short one at that. The only reason I've been able to put this up is that I've already written it; I'm taking a class online and my parents have decided I'm not working on it fast enough. So, as opposed to spending my Spring Break getting a few chapters of _Confiscated_ written, I'll be chugging away at my class._

_You're all heart-broken, I know.  
_

* * *

I couldn't believe it. Standing there on the other side of the museum, dusting herself off after attacking one of my friends, was Melody. She hadn't even bothered much of a costume; her garb was much the same as before, except she'd pulled her short red hair up into a tiny ponytail. Other than that, she was dressed in the same civvies she'd worn in the diner, right down to the ring. The only other addition was a thick sack that she'd likely been planning to fill with goods.

Raven shouted her chant and packing crates flew at Melody. The girl's eyes went wide as she saw them coming at her. She teleported away from the attack, now back near Beast Boy, who had picked himself up, laughing. "That's all you've got?" he snorted, brushing green hair out of his face. "I've been thrown through walls that are stronger than that!" The grinning laughter paused for a moment. "Not that this isn't a _good_ change of pace." He brushed his hair back again; I suppose he's too used to having it spiked up, and fighting without it gelled back is throwing him off a little.

Melody scowled. "What's that supposed to mean?" Starfire caught her off-guard and bombarded her with starbolts. "Ahh! Hey, knock that off!" She teleported a few feet, out of their path, and wound up behind Beast Boy. I had my cannon trained on her, but wasn't ready to fire on Beast Boy, who had ended up in the way by mere chance. The poor kid was tired and as out of his element as the thief herself.

"Yo, BB!" I called, steadying my arm with my other hand as I tried to aim more accurately. "Move your scrawny butt outta my shot!" Beast Boy looked over his shoulder at Melody, startled at her sudden appearance, and looked back at me, realizing he was spoiling my shot. Starfire, too, had stopped firing, and Robin's discs were waiting to be thrown. Beast Boy looked around at the four of us, each poised to attack but unable to, grinned sheepishly at his mistake, and went to shapeshift and fly out of the way.

Grinning crookedly as she got an idea, Melody Jane kicked him sharply in the back of the knee, stopping his shapeshifting and knocking him just enough off balance that he couldn't block her next move. She wrapped her arms around his torso and teleported. Beast Boy's voice rang out in a startled cry, and I turned toward it, cannon raised. "Duuude!" he shouted, his voice raising in indignation, "Lemme go!"

She nodded, awkwardly knocking his feet out from under him again as she shoved him away to reach for a display, a fancy set of Roman armor. "You've done a fine job protecting this civilian, hero boy." She touched the display and disappeared, taking the whole case with her.

* * *

Melody reappeared in her little apartment, the large case almost too big to fit. Working quickly, she broke the case open and gently removed the armor, setting it onto her counter. That done, she pressed her fingers to it once more, and reappeared in the museum.

* * *

"That was…most strange," Starfire said, hovering just off the ground. I nodded.

"You don't know the half of it. I ran into her today in the city. She seemed nice enough then; dunno why she's going around and robbing stuff, or where those powers came from." I shook my head. "You think you know someone…" Beast Boy looked around, still highly confused.

"So… she got away?"

"Looks that way," Raven muttered, putting her hood up. There was another whoosh of air; Melody Jane was back for more, it seemed. We all wheeled around, but Raven reacted fastest. The teleporting thief's legs were wrapped in her dark magic; she was trapped… for the moment.

"Just putting this bac- hey!" Melody Jane struggled for a second in Raven's power, then gave up. She looked up at the five of us. "Ya caught me," she said with that crooked smile, raising her hands in mock surrender. "Now whatcha gonna do?" Police sirens sounded, the cops showing up without being called, just in time, as usual, to cart off the baddie without doing any actual work.

"The cops've got a pretty good idea, Melody Jane," I said, smiling right back at her. I leveled my cannon at her, and fired a shot, one just powerful enough to knock her unconscious. She collapsed just as some policemen came it, guns raised. "There you go, officers. She won't hassle you none."

* * *

_Not a very good chapter, but I wrote it the night before I had to submit it, and I had to skimp on the words to stay in the range. I would edit, but the contest rules stated that the entry had to be complete, and, in my mind, changing it after the fact makes the original seem mighty incomplete._

_...SnowFallsSlow...  
_


	5. Epilogue

_Last chapter. Short, sweet, and to the point. Well... short and to the point, at least. Enjoy. :D_

* * *

Thursday afternoon, just like every other Thursday, I went to the park to meet up with Sarah Simms and help coach baseball with the league I helped found. When I came over, Sarah practically jumped on me, bouncing on her heels in excitement. "Cyborg! We got an anonymous donation to build an actual field!" I looked out at the kids, who were chasing each other, or tossing a ball back and forth, then back at her.

"What? When was this?" She grinned at me.

"Someone deposited a large donation into my account last night! I found a note on my apartment door, too. It said that they had talked with you and wanted to help your cause. Cy, isn't this great?" She hugged me tight, and I laughed.

"Yeah, Sarah. It's like music to my ears."

* * *

Clear across the town, a pay-by-the-week apartment sat empty, repainted, and full of new, top of the line appliances.

* * *

_If you wish to stick around, I'll have an explaination of the chapter titles posted in the next day or so. A sort of expiriment, because I'm planning to do it for _Confiscated_ as well, and I'd like to see if it's well-recieved._


End file.
